Building a gaming PC

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because that was the advice given earlier to me in the thread. all of my choices were influenced by that lol you can go back and read it~~~

Fair enough I won't argue it, it just seemed wierd if you weren't going to OC (I plan to do that myself later down the line personally). Enjoy the new PC, when I get around to mine we are going to have similar specs.
 
Fair enough I won't argue it, it just seemed wierd if you weren't going to OC (I plan to do that myself later down the line personally). Enjoy the new PC, when I get around to mine we are going to have similar specs.

I'm assuming if I want to OC it later I can upgrade the cpu but one of the things I was worried about was price and having an overclocked cpu was quite expensive but this way it allowed me to upgrade more easily in the future.... at least that's what i'm assuming lol i don't know much about computers but I am trying to learn.
 
I'm assuming if I want to OC it later I can upgrade the cpu but one of the things I was worried about was price and having an overclocked cpu was quite expensive but this way it allowed me to upgrade more easily in the future.... at least that's what i'm assuming lol i don't know much about computers but I am trying to learn.

Don't worry about it and congratulations on your first build. It's great.

My question was referring to the H97 motherboard which doesn't allow for overclocking but with a "K" cpu and a 212 evo which are designed to be overclocked. So I just assumed you had no intention to OC based on the motherboard but was curious about 4690k instead of an ordinary 4690. Like I said it's no big deal though.
 
Don't worry about it and congratulations on your first build. It's great.

My question was referring to the H97 motherboard which doesn't allow for overclocking but with a "K" cpu and a 212 evo which are designed to be overclocked. So I just assumed you had no intention to OC based on the motherboard but was curious about 4690k instead of an ordinary 4690. Like I said it's no big deal though.
To be honest, intel stock coolers are shite. Using an aftermarket one even if you're not planning on overclocking still means that your CPU temps will be lower than with a stock cooler.

But I agree that it would've made more sense to get a regular 4690 instead of the K model though.
 
Granted, the adverse effect of an oversized PSU is more subtle ;)

Granted, however 650W in a Corsair CS may be less of an oversize than a 520W Seasonic or 550W XTX. The Corsair CS has bad ripple when heavily loaded on the 12V rail.
 
To be honest, intel stock coolers are shite.

Does it make a major difference in non overclocked scenarios? Recent processors are quite efficient and become more and more efficient with each release. So are aftermarket coolers still a necessity? I didn't really keep track of this, but I get a feeling that Intel is moving towards a fanless setup altogether. Also, how are they noise wise? Are stock fans usually louder?
 
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Does it make a major difference in non overclocked scenarios? Recent processors are quite efficient and become more and more efficient with each release. So are aftermarket coolers still a necessity? I didn't really keep track of this,. but I get a feeling that Intel is moving towards a fanless setup altogether. Also, how are they noise wise? Are stock fans usually louder?

They're still noisy, nasty little things. But the big CoolerMasters are, well, big, and they constrain the size of your case, use of side-mounted fans, things like that.

For non-overclocking stock replacement, around here, Fry's has SilenX CPU coolers, which are falsely advertised but very low profile and don't whine. Good for 2U rackmount and pizza box configurations.
 
Does it make a major difference in non overclocked scenarios? Recent processors are quite efficient and become more and more efficient with each release. So are aftermarket coolers still a necessity? I didn't really keep track of this, but I get a feeling that Intel is moving towards a fanless setup altogether. Also, how are they noise wise? Are stock fans usually louder?

From what I usually see, AMD absolutely NEEDS a after market cooler or you'll get very loud 60°C without doing anything on stock coolers. Intel it's not so necessary in the first year, but work load and age usually drive people to at least spend at the minimum another 30 bucks or so for a better more silent cooler.
Non gaming rigs it's different AMD can do with a 15€ cooler that's just not as loud and Intel usually is okay with a stock cooler until a few years in. Mostly because people don't clean fans, so they get really really noisy after a while.
 
From what I usually see, AMD absolutely NEEDS a after market cooler or you'll get very loud 60°C without doing anything on stock coolers. Intel it's not so necessary in the first year, but work load and age usually drive people to at least spend at the minimum another 30 bucks or so for a better more silent cooler.
Non gaming rigs it's different AMD can do with a 15€ cooler that's just not as loud and Intel usually is okay with a stock cooler until a few years in. Mostly because people don't clean fans, so they get really really noisy after a while.

^ This.

Most AMD CPUs need a substantial cooler. Stock doesn't cut it, and stock is loud. You can get away with a low-profile cooler on APUs and Athlon x2s; anything more powerful is in the 95-125W range or even higher and needs serious cooling. 8-core models should make you seriously consider water cooling.
 
^ This.

Most AMD CPUs need a substantial cooler. Stock doesn't cut it, and stock is loud. You can get away with a low-profile cooler on APUs and Athlon x2s; anything more powerful is in the 95-125W range or even higher and needs serious cooling. 8-core models should make you seriously consider water cooling.

Meh water cooling is too obvious, thermalright hr-02 macho silent, awesome, cheap if you can fit it in your case. Mine makes a small bit of noise, usually overpowered by the GPU and case fans. On an FM processor you can't hear a thing, really I can't tell if BF's PC is running since he forgot the power led.
 
Meh water cooling is too obvious, thermalright hr-02 macho silent, awesome, cheap if you can fit it in your case. Mine makes a small bit of noise, usually overpowered by the GPU and case fans. On an FM processor you can't hear a thing, really I can't tell if BF's PC is running since he forgot the power led.

True, but heavy loads rapidly exceed the capacity of any cooler smaller than that. I run an 8-core Bulldozer on jobs with multiple CPU-bound threads, and I need a lot more cooling than a CM Hyper T4 is good for. Its case is well set up for water cooling, and I'm giving it serious consideration.
 
True, but heavy loads rapidly exceed the capacity of any cooler smaller than that. I run an 8-core Bulldozer on jobs with multiple CPU-bound threads, and I need a lot more cooling than a CM Hyper T4 is good for. Its case is well set up for water cooling, and I'm giving it serious consideration.
Well Macho... Seriously even my non obeying one stays rather cool at a maxed out 100% CPU usage on all 8 cores of my puny FX-8350 vishera. If you really want to be sure Thermalright SilverArrow IB-E Extreme Just that one could really cause problems with ram sticks... Noise wise I always found water cooling to be worse than the monster coolers.

Quote from my own it has to be a ghost thread:
Temp of CPU can go up to 58°C before the macho even goes over 700RPM even though the fan profile says go max out all the time.
Mine isn't behaving but that temperature is from really stressing the CPU to max out on Handbrake without allowing it to OC. Who would have guessed pressing X while booting pushes the CPU to 5,6GHZ °°

On the Phenom II x4 965 that macho stayed close to room temperature all the time. On a FM processor with Handbrake it's a few degrees above room temp at full usage. My main PC is just weird...

I've installed Machos in other PC's with an FX-8350 before none got so weird as mine... Something is screwing up big time for me. Overall I usually see posts recommending a macho over a CM Hyper T4, I'd say if you have the space try it. Bloody cheap at 35-40€ and as I said except for mine on this one new CPU/Mainboard not behaving they all are incredible silent and cool.

Always believed it would take water cooling, till I tried that monstrosity.
 
Does it make a major difference in non overclocked scenarios? Recent processors are quite efficient and become more and more efficient with each release. So are aftermarket coolers still a necessity? I didn't really keep track of this, but I get a feeling that Intel is moving towards a fanless setup altogether. Also, how are they noise wise? Are stock fans usually louder?


Personally for anything above an i3, I'd get an aftermarket cooler. Just to be safe. I bet a lot of people disagree with this though.
 
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@.Volsung. : How are you measuring FPS, with something like voglperf? I was looking for a tool that could do it as an overlay. Open drivers from Gallium3D allow it with some variable hack (see GALLIUM_HUD details here: http://mesa3d.org/envvars.html), but closed Nvidia driver requires something else.

Also, how do you measure total system power draw without resorting to some external wattmeters?

Didn't know how to measure FPS in Linux so I tried them in Windows. But now I'm curious about what Linux might show.

For the watts, I already have a good home UPS --Uninterruptible Power Supply-- because I live in an area with slight but frequent power variations. The APC model I purchased a few years ago shows me several things, including current load.
 
Can anyone please clarify the audio logic on the built in cards in motherboards. I noticed that audio produced by the outputs on my motherboard sounds somewhat different (or may be it just seems so)? I have a 8 channel configuration apparently (since I used HD audio connector between the motherboard and the case which triggers 8 channel mode). 2 of them go to the front of the case (front microphone and headphones), and 6 go to the back (line in, mic in, front speaker out, center / subwoofer, rear speaker out, side speaker out). ALSA detects them properly.

I generally use headphones, but I don't like cluttering the front of the case, so I just connected an audio extension cable to the back outputs. However I'm not sure how exactly they differ. Is it better to use "front speaker out" from those 6 with headphones case, or it shouldn't make any difference? Are center / subwoofer, rear speaker out, side speaker out supposed to be used for special setup like surround (never used that before)?
 
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Can anyone please clarify the audio logic on the built in cards in motherboards. I noticed that audio produced by the outputs on my motherboard sounds somewhat different (or may be it just seems so)? I have a 8 channel configuration apparently (since I used HD audio connector between the motherboard and the case which triggers 8 channel mode). 2 of them go to the front of the case (front microphone and headphones), and 6 go to the back (line in, mic in, front speaker out, center / subwoofer, rear speaker out, side speaker out). ALSA detects them properly.

I generally use headphones, but I don't like cluttering the front of the case, so I just connected an audio extension cable to the back outputs. However I'm not sure how exactly they differ. Is it better to use "front speaker out" from those 6 with headphones case, or it shouldn't make any difference? Are center / subwoofer, rear speaker out, side speaker out supposed to be used for special setup like surround (never used that before)?

There's sometimes a difference between the headphone (normally routed to the front panel) and line out (normally on the back panel) outputs. The headphone output may have an additional driver stage that sources additional power, matches the relatively low impedance of headphones, and becomes an additional source of distortion.

If you're feeding an external 2-channel amplifier, feed it from the rear jack marked line out or front speaker (green). If you're feeding headphones, use either that jack or the front panel jack, whichever gives you the better result.

The additional jacks (center/subwoofer, rear speakers, side speakers) are for surround setups.
 
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